Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 3:36 PM, James Christian wrote:
> First, I think we should look at the way the book presents itself before
> considering other factors for dating the book. Verses 17b to 22 may well
> have been added to the book at a later date but they seem to suggest that
> the book can be no later than the time of David.

Why?

> The book in its entirety
> seems to have little value other than a story of David's lineage.

Not necessarily.  It deals with Moabite relationships.  We know Moabites were
an issue in Second Temple period times.  See Deut 23:4 quoted in Neh 13:1.
So perhaps it had more value than just a story of David's lineage.

> no great percentage of Israel's populace would be particularly interested in
> David's lineage until he had become king. The tradition that Samuel wrote
> this book would seem to fit

How does it fit?  What is your evidence?

> I suppose if we are to do a professional job of dating the book we need to
> establish boundaries both for late composition and early composition. Its
> earliest composition, of course, aside from final comments on David's
> lineage COULD be no earlier than the time of the events themselves. A
> version of the story MAY have circulated in oral tradition or even in
> written form until the time of David. It's not every day that something like
> this happened so doubtlessly the story was gossiped about. Something like
> its final canonical form MAY well have been penned in David's reign with the
> genealogy pinned to the end.

(Capitalized above) - could - may - may -- all hypotheticals with no evidence
to support them.  Furthermore, how do you know that it is not everyday that
something like this happens?  (Just what is "something like this"?)  What is
your evidence that this was something out of the ordinary?

None of this relates to Yigal's question which specifically asked for 
linguistic
evidence.  But also, you ignore verses like 4:7 which explicitly say that the
story was written long after the fact.

> As for establishing a late boundary I'll let the minimalists take over and
> present their case. Then we can start taking each statement apart and giving
> it a date.

I don't think there are any minimalists on this list.  Those generally
identified
as minimalists, such as Thomas Thompson are no longer members of this
list, because they found little value in it.

Yitzhak Sapir